Buhari’s Government Begins Retrieving Stolen Funds From Oil Marketers

President Muhammadu Buhari has mapped out strategies to recover some stolen loots in the Nigerian oil industry which occurred during the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan.

Buhari is reportedly using this tactics because his government is short of cash. The government have allegedly stumbled on some illegal deals that were perpetuated by former Petroleum Minister, Diezani Alison-Madueke and some Nigerian oil companies and oil marketers.

Alison-Madueke had reportedly had been heavily involved in transferring certain oil wells reclaimed from multinational oil companies to some Nigerian operators she is close to.

Already, Buhari’s administration has begun retrieving some of the missing monies that disappeared as a result of the deal.

A source in Buhari’s government told SaharaReporters that one of the Nigerian operators had volunteered to return $500 million to the Federal Government account. Although, the source said the marketer is in possession of $4.5 billion.

The government’s strategy is to target oil marketers and companies “caught red-handed in stealing huge sums of oil subsidies and oil revenues”. Some of them have been pressured to repay the stolen monies traced to them.

“A number of them have agreed to import massive levels of fuel in lieu of the funds they received in shady transactions during the Jonathan administration,” another source claimed.

The government is also said to be putting pressure on Alison-Madueke, but she denied any wrong-doing instead she implicated some officials in the NNPC, accusing them of fraud.

“The [Buhari] government got her to write a formal account of her allegations against some NNPC officials and oil companies. What she put down gave a picture of how some of the funds went missing. The document was then forwarded to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in the form of a petition,” the source said.

Those the former minister implicated in the NNPC include the current General Managing Director (GMD), Haruna Momoh, a former GMD, Austen Oniwon, Reginald Stanley and Sam Okeke, a former Group General Manager, New Business Division of the NNPC.

Recommended For You

NAIJ.com is a Nigerian news and entertainment portal that features aggregated news content along with original and exclusive reporting by top journalists and opinion-makers across the country and beyond.